Category: Blog

Location: Broadcast Coffee 1918 E. Yesler Way Sunday, Nov. 24, 3 p.m. For too long, the Seattle Public Schools have failed to live up to their duty to educate all children and serve all families. Time and time again the Seattle schools leadership has ignored or overridden the voices and concerns of African-American, Latino, Native American, Asian-American, and Pacific Islander communities and imposed an educational system that does not work for their students. Some recent examples include: Disproportionality in discipline against African-American students by Seattle Public Schools; The lack of community engagement in south Seattle around the

Social Equality Educators (SEE) Meeting When: Sunday, November 3rd, 11:00pm–1:30pm Where: Jesse’s house, email hagopian.jesse@gmail.com for the address This week’s proposed agenda will include our work around racial justice. Two key issues will be discussed: Jon Greenberg’s case and Africa Town. Jon Greenberg’s case will now go to arbitration but we are also, as a union, going to fight publicly for his reinstatement. This is a key component for the fight around racial justice, one that we’ll want to strengthen and then align with other efforts. There is also a key struggle heating up around the eviction of the Africa

Below is SEE’s statement advocating a “No” vote on the Tentative Agreement. You can also download the flyer here. VOTE NO on the Tentative Agreement Educators deserve more – Students deserve more Teachers are not test scores – Students are not test scores Let’s stay at the bargaining table, get comparable evaluations to other school districts, and make the district comply with state law Statement of the Social Equality Educators: Over the past several weeks, the Seattle Education Association has identified four major sticking points in the contract negotiations– evaluation, the length of the elementary workday, caseload limits for ESAs,

An Open Letter to Seattle Education Association President Jonathan Knapp from the Social Equality Educators — Dear President Knapp, As members and supporters of the Social Equality Educators (SEE), an organization of rank-and-file social justice activist teachers and educational employees in the Seattle Education Association, we are writing to express our dismay over your recent remarks in the Seattle Times article titled, “Seattle teachers union adopts softer strategy.” To read our union president announce to the world that we do not intend to mount the most vigorous struggle necessary to counter the specious arguments of billionaire education reformers (and any understudies

“I achieved the greatest moment in my teaching career this past winter. Though billionaire education reformers may fall out of their brass-studded leather chairs to hear it, I did not attain this moment of euphoria from running bubble tests through a Scantron machine and reading the red-inked percentages it spit out. It occurred, in fact, as hundreds upon hundreds of students streamed past me in the hallways, leaving school in the middle of the day carrying hand-made signs that read, “Fund Our Future!” and “No More Cuts.” I was simply overwhelmed with emotion.” — From Yes! Magazine: My Greatest Teaching Moment by

“The chants of some 150 teachers, students, parents and Occupy Seattle activists reverberated off the windows of the global headquarters of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation – a leading promoter of a corporate brand of education reform—announcing we were ready for our scheduled debate about the schools as part of a national call to “Occupy Education” on March 1st. From Oscar Grant Plaza in Oakland, California, to the Department of Education in Washington, D.C., Occupy activists schooled the nation with experiential learning demonstrations with the instructional objective of making education a right for the 99 percent, not a privilege